"A ten-pound note, sir?"
"Yes, for robbing you of your bed. Didn't you tell me you were a
wonder at night driving. Well, I want to see what stuff you're made
of."
I did not answer him, and, after talking a lot about my cleverness and
the way the car had run, he went in and had his dinner. What to make
of him or his proposal I knew no more than the dead. Certainly he had
done nothing which gave me any title to judge him, and a man with a job
to serve isn't over-ready to be nice about his masters, whatever their
doings. I came to the conclusion that he was just a dotty old boy who
had gone crazy over some girl, and that he was driving out by night to
see her. All the talk about Watford and his letters was so much
jibarree and not meant for home consumption; but, in any case, it was
no affair of mine, nor could I be held responsible for what he did or
what he left undone.
This was the wisest view to take, and it helped me out afterwards. He
made a good dinner, they told me, and drank a fine bottle of port, kept
in the cellars of the house from the old days when gentlemen drove
themselves to Newmarket, and didn't spare the liquor by the way. It
was half-past ten when I saw him again, and then he had one of the
roly-poly cigars in his mouth and the ten-pound note in his hand.
"Britten," he said quite plain, "you know why I've come down here?"
"I think so, sir."
"_Chercher les femmes_, as they say in Boolong--I'm down here to meet
the girl I'm going to marry."
"Hope you'll find her well, sir."
"Ah, that's just it. I shan't find her well if her old father can help
it. Damn him, he's nearly killed her with his oaths and swearing these
last two months. But it's going to stop, Britten, and stop to-night.
She's waiting for this car over at Fawley Hill, which isn't half a mile
from this very door."
He came a step nearer and thrust the ten-pound note under my very nose.
"It's Lord Hailsham's place--straight up the hill to the right and on
to the high road from Bishop's Stortford. There's a party for a silver
wedding, and Miss Davenport is staying there with her father and
mother. Bring her to this house and I'll give you fifty pounds.
There's ten as earnest money. She's over age and can do what she
likes--and it's no responsibility of yours, anyway."